Portraits of Asian-American culture

Art meets politics this week at the Russell Senate Building Rotunda in a photo exhibit in which the photographer wants lawmakers to see the “human face” behind their policy decisions.

“Policy position papers can be somewhat dry and technical, so my hope was that through the photography we can put a human face on the communities impacted by health policy,” photographer Adam Stoltman said of his exhibit, “Capturing Culture: Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, Pacific lslanders and Community in American Culture and Society.”

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“Photography is a wonderful medium for fostering identification, and I think in the times we’re living in where America is more culturally diverse than it has ever been it’s very important that we find those bridges between communities and cultures, so that was the hope for this material,” Stoltman said.

The project uses “imagery as a tool for cultural understanding” within the Asian-American/Pacific-Islander community. The Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum is also a partner in the project.

The exhibition displays various aspects of different Asian cultures across the U.S., and what these communities consider to be important to them and their everyday struggles and joys.

According to APIAHF President and CEO Kathy Ko Chin, the pictures depict “how communities regained their health, regained their footing and also established themselves in the United States as fully American communities.”

One photo shows teenagers getting ready to perform traditional Cambodian dances in Providence, R.I., dressed in eye-catching red and gold outfits. Another shows an older Vietnamese woman tending to a garden at an urban farm in New Orleans. There’s a young girl playing after youth services at a Vietnamese temple in New Mexico, and a disabled woman in her wheelchair at the Ed Roberts Campus in Berkeley, Calif.

“This exhibit gives a window into the diversity of Asian American, Pacific Islander and Native Hawaiian communities,” Sen. Mazie Hirono said in a statement. “The photos of the Kokua Kalihi Valley and other communities capture the experiences and pride of these communities and add an important layer to our discussions of health disparities across our country,” said the Hawaii Democrat, who sponsored the exhibition before the Senate Rules Committee so it could be shown in the Rotunda.

The exhibition is on display the same week that comprehensive immigration reform proposals are being discussed in both chambers of Congress. Although immigration isn’t as much of the focus of Chin’s group, in this situation, she thinks it’s very important.

“After Jan. 1, 2014, the single greatest social determinant of whether you have health insurance in this country will be your immigration status because, for the many gains in health insurance coverage that the Affordable Care Act offers to millions of Americans, there are tens of thousands of people who will still remain uninsured … or be treated differentially because of their immigration status,” Chin said, adding that two-thirds to three-quarters of the Asian-American/Native Hawaiian/Pacific-Islander community is made up of immigrants.

The message Stoltman hopes will resonate is very simple, but one he thinks is important.

“I would like people to take away from it that we are all connected, and that though we may come from many different cultures and communities we share a common bond as human beings, and though that may seem very simplistic and somewhat idealistic message, I think it’s an important one for these times,” he said. “There is tremendous divisiveness everywhere, and my hope is that this may be my very, very small contribution to instilling that value or ethos that we are indeed one part of the same human family.”